Previews

E3 2009: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks Hands-on Preview

Spiffy:

New dungeons, fun new puzzles involving the phantom, and heck, who doesn't love trains?

Iffy:

Someday the retelling of the Zelda story's gotta get old. Right?

What is It?

The next in a long line of Zelda games, the Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is the DS follow-up to The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. It features a cartoony art style, and ties it into an adventure game that extensively uses the touch screen of the DS. It's slated for release in Q4 2009.

What's New for E3?

A trailer revealed the game at GDC this year, but this is the first time that we got to go hands-on with it. Visually it looks identical to the last Zelda DS game, and plays similarly as well. Players still use the touch screen to move Link around, exploring dungeons with bosses at the end, and are likely still trying to save Princess Zelda. The only difference as far as story that was discernible from what I played in the demo was that you moved around in a train, as opposed to the boat in the last game.

Also new was the ability to use the touch screen to control a "phantom." In the dungeon I played, Link was running around with an armored phantom, which I was able to direct by selecting with the stylus and then dragging a path for him on the touch screen. While I could use the phantom to attack enemies, the main use he served was in solving puzzles in the dungeon. Whether I had to direct him to hit a switch simultaneously with me or use him to walk through lava while carrying Link out of harm's way, the phantom proved integral to the puzzles in Spirit Tracks.

I also got a chance to explore a little bit of the world of Spirit Tracks, using the new train to get around. The train is on rails, but has the ability to shoot cannonballs, similar to how the ship did in the last Zelda DS title. It was fun getting to drive around, and despite the fact that you're on rails and can't control your path outside of occasionally switching tracks, you still have plenty to do; there's always something to shoot, or animals blocking your path that you have to scare with the train's horn.

Anthony says:
I never beat the first Zelda DS game, but I can say that what I played was a lot of fun. Spirit Tracks really doesn't do all that much different from the original Zelda DS, but if it manages to tell a different story and present some interesting puzzles via the new phantom mechanic I'm sure it'll be good enough to appease Nintendo fans. (Actually, scratch that, just by having the Zelda name it's already enough by default.) So far there's never been a Zelda game that's disappointed, and my time with Spirit Tracks hasn't convinced me that there will be any time soon.